Those purchasing purveyors of partisan doctrine

At some point when I wasn’t paying attention, Liguori Publications must have taken over the production of Franciscan Media’s notorious Catholic Updates. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. In a new update by Xavier University’s Ken Overberg, S.J., on “Gospel Values in an Election Year,” he gives one perfunctory, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it reference to abortion, none to the protection of marriage, and spills most of his ink on topics like the environment, income inequality, and migrations. He also tries to channel the late Cardinal Bernardin’s discredited “consistent ethic of life” (aka the “seamless garment”) through the writings of Pope Francis. I suppose none of this is all that surprising, given that Overberg has been riding the social justice hobbyhorse since the mid-70s. But at this late date, who exactly are Liguori’s editors trying to persuade? Younger Catholics don’t get their news from leaflets, and there’s nothing accessible here to anyone but purveyors of what Pope Benedict XVI called “partisan doctrine.” But then again, it’s those purveyors who disproportionately serve as DREs, pastoral administrators, and parish apparatchiks. Liguori must know its customers.